When Sir Ernest Shackleton set out to find a crew for what turned out to be his ill-fated voyage to Antarctica in 1915, he placed an ad in the Times of London which read: "Men wanted for hazardous journey. Smal...

Deciding whether or not to leave a youth ministry position is perhaps the most difficult issue youth workers face. It's typically marked by gut-wrenching periods of soul-searching and cross-examination—co...

Popular wisdom of late has it that the way to build disciples is through relational ministry, through missions and service projects. Programming...sure, it keeps the fringe kids happy, but can it do more?Severa...

This is the second of a pair of articles that summarize a forum of older youth workers at last autumn's National Youth Workers Convention. The first article explores the grace and divine calling felt by older y...

In the YS Convention handbook, the 10 p.m. forums carried the title "Help! I'm Over 40 and Still in Youth Ministry!" I didn't expect a crowd, considering the late hour and the convention's more exotic offerings...

My brother and his wife spend most of their waking hours thinking about drag racing. Their whole lives revolve around race cars: they build them, race them, rebuild them and race them again. When I have the opp...

We all have a favorite manipulative story, and mine is that of the drawbridge operator and his son. The man sits in his little box and lifts the bridge when a boat comes by and lowers it for the passing trains....

From Learning My Lines: "Every now and then I find something positive in pop culture that's worth passing along to our CPYU constituency. This morning I found one of those things while doing some writing for t...

Youth workers can feel frustrated by parents who only seem to show up when they want to complain. However, moms and dads have a much higher stake in kids' lives than we do, and parents are a more important spir...

From A New Kind of Youth Ministry:"Below is a document (pdf) that briefly explains what I hope to do with the current book project I am working on called, God is Loud.  I would love for you to speak into t...